Volunteer teachers learn to help kids read

Volunteer teachers from the Out of Schools Teacher Training programme run by the Catholic Children’s Ministry in Madang attended a three-day Bilum Books phonics workshop at the Alexishafen Conference Centre.
The workshop was sponsored by Unicef and organised by Sister Mary Claude Gadd, of the Catholic Mission Headquarters, in Madang. Unicef also bought sets of Bilum Books Phonics, Elementary School Picture Dictionary and Spelling books for the participating schools.
The workshop helped train volunteer teachers to use Bilum Books Phonics to teach children who do not go to school.
“English is an international language,” Sister Mary Claude said.
“It is important for our young people to learn to read and write English.”
She said Bilum Books Phonics was “well structured, simple and easy to use”.
Bilum Books Phonics aligns with the phonics strand in the new standards-based syllabus.
This makes it easy for out-of-school students when they re-join schools in the national system.
One of the conductors, Ray O’Farrell, said: “There is no reason why our children cannot learn to read and write good English.
“The new syllabus is good. If our elementary teachers are trained to teach phonics and we give them the right resources, our children will learn to read and write.”
The teachers were to learn the teaching of phonics and common words and the new elementary English syllabus.